The Farepak swindle is a demonstration of our economic and political system at its purest. The rich steal from the poorest sector of society and it's all legal, nothing can be done. What's more nobody in the government wants to do anything. Apart from that prick McCartney, "Let's have a whipround, but let's not disturb the thieves while they're tallying up."
Blair stands up in Parliament and states the government's intent to ensure that this will never happen again. Later a spokesman interprets this statement. "It doesn't mean that the government is going to do anything."
http://www.thisismoney.co.uk/news/article.html?in_article_id=414536&in_page_id=2

Statements in Parliament are no longer to be taken seriously, it seems. Margaret Beckett gets up and declares that British Forces will start pulling out of Iraq in the Spring. Later a government spokesman clarifies, "This doesn't mean that troops will be pulling out in the Spring."
Well of course not. I remember when John Profumo had to resign from the government for lying to Parliament - such quaint old customs.
The past is another country. I sometimes wonder if my presence in this one is legal.

SADDAM COMEBACK
My semi-serious remarks about a rehabilitation of Saddam may not be far off the mark. According to a report on commondreams.org James Baker has been talking to one of Saddam's lawyers. The lawyer was informed that Tariq Aziz is to be released to negotiate with the Baathist resistance, presumably to cut ties with the Sunni Fanatics if any such ties ever existed.
Meanwhile Tony Blair mourns the death of one Pierre Gemayyel. OK Tony, tell us all you know about this political giant. I'm betting he'd never heard the name before the assassination. Pierre was one of the anti-Syrian faction in Lebanon. That means pro-American, that's the America that sent the Israelis into Lebanon to kill as many Lebanese as possible, and to turn the country to rubble. I can see why he might be a target for people other than the Syrian Mukhabarat.
Lebanese politicians are assassinated with regularity, usually by other Lebanese, and its my opinion that the Maronites, Gemayyel's own confessional group, top the assassination charts. Observers are pointing out that Pierre was killed in what should have been a relatively safe area for him.

Another claimed political murder, that in London of Litvinenko, raises some questions. He is supposed to have upset Putin with his claims about the Moscow bombing, that it was done by Putin's people, not Chechen terrorists. Well this story has been in the public domain for some time and the western media and western politicians have chosen not to hear it. Why should Putin worry? As long as he pays lip service to Bush's "war on terror" he can do what he likes to his own people.
We are supposed to sympathise with this Litvinenko, yet he was once part of this state terrorist set-up. That's how he knows so much. He chose to transfer his allegiance to the gangster, sorry oligarch, Berezovsky; doubtless a much more rewarding post, financially speaking. I can't swear to this but I'm sure I heard his friend Nekrasov say that he knew he'd been poisoned because he was once part of the department that carried out these operations.
I have to ask, who are these people, Litvinenko, Goldfarb, Nekrasov? What are they doing here? Russian politics and gangsterism are so closely linked that we should treat all these people with suspicion. At the moment the Berezovsky boys are having a free run in the British media, and they are muddying the waters in my opinion. Their activities merit closer scrutiny.

Back in the saddle. Major surgery, complications, serious illness, slow, continuing recovery.
My best laid schemes for the exposure of cliché-ridden mediaspeak, and a catalogue of silly name spellings have rapidly descended my list of priorities. So has my planned piece on the evil that is Starbucks. I may manage it eventually, but for now I think I'll just kvetch (or it quetsch?).
What doesn't kill us makes us stronger, that's what the platitudinarians say, and it's shite. What doesn't kill us softens us up for the next attack on our physical well-being. We are left weaker, not stronger; and, I'm wagering, our lives are shortened by the massive drain on our powers of resistance and recovery from an attack on our system. The Iceman hasn't got me yet, but I don't think he's given up on me. He isn't saying "How much stronger is Jemmy Hope!" More likely he's saying "Next time will be easier."
But have I said one word of thanks, one word of praise, for the dedicated people who brought me through the ordeal? The thanks are felt and meant, and were expressed at the time. What I would add is that those fine, hard working people who work at the gory end of our once great National Health Service deserve better than they are getting from managers, money-grubbers, and the lying politicians who are cosying up to the privateers - oh. and ineffectual full-time union officials.